AB InBev blockchain ads go live

AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, and Kiip, an in-app mobile advertising platform, announced the launch of the first blockchain mobile ad campaign.

The campaign uses Kiip’s data analysis capabilities to target and deliver ads to audiences, while moving away from consumer interruption.

“As the world’s largest brewer and brand builders, we take our responsibility for the stewardship of the category seriously through our approach to advertising and the ways we create meaningful experiences for consumers with our brand content,” says Lucas Herscovici, AB InBev’s Global Marketing Vice President of Consumer Connections, Insights and Innovation.

The campaign uses Kiip’s “Single Ledger” blockchain product. The plan is that blockchain will allow participants to view and audit campaign data. This eliminates the potential for fraudulent reporting by third parties and simplifies an otherwise complex payment process.

There’s more, the ability of participants to view all the transactions means that AB InBev can check the effectiveness of each ad-dollar spent. Also, this gives AB InBev the means to easily cut spending on ads going to un-targeted audiences.

Brian Wong, founder and CEO of Kiip is excited by the impact this new technology could have: “Blockchain’s magical impact comes in the form of its immutable and decentralized ledger technology.

“Data that is stored uniquely in thousands of servers can never be manipulated. We saw this technology’s potential to impact several major areas of the advertising world, including supply-chain transparency, campaign data reconciliation, and viewability verification.”

This represents a significant step forward for the use of blockchain in this industry.

Where previously we have only seen Proof of Concepts and explorative initiatives, here is an actual launch.

Other advertising blockchains

There are several advertising blockchain initiatives. Yesterday Mediaocean announced a major initiative with IBM as well as Kellogg, Kimberly-Clark, Pfizer, and Unilever.

The AdLedger consortium also includes IBM as a partner, and their members are primarily publishers, ad agencies, and adtech companies. In fact, Mediaocean is also part of AdLedger.

There are two video advertising projects. Firstly, Premion/Madhive are partnering, both of whom are AdLedger founding members. Secondly, Freewheel (formerly Comcast Advanced Advertising) is working on a project named BlockGraphTM.

A success for AB InBev could force other players to accelerate their own blockchain plans.